Karie Anthony

Home Value

GET YOUR HOME’S VALUEZillow is most likely WRONG!

Plenty of sellers have visited online home valuation sites such as Zillow, Trulia, eAppraisal, and
others only to be shocked at the value of their homes.

Most sellers are pleased when the values appear higher than they expected, but many online
valuations come in far lower.
Online Valuations
Estimating a home’s market value is far from an exact science. What these sites attempt to do is
provide greater transparency to homebuyers and sellers by making data derived from public
records, more…public.

They publish what you paid for your home and how much you pay in
taxes. Many have satellite views so accurate they can spot your cat laying on the front porch.
How do they do it? Home valuation sites contract with major title companies such as First
American to obtain county tax roll data. All property is registered with the county for property
taxing purposes. They also find ways to become members of local multiple listing services,
which are either subsidiaries of real estate associations or owned by local real estate brokers.
That way, they have access to listing data.

Between tax roll data and listing data, home valuation sites apply their own secret sauce, or
algorithm to come up with “zestimates” or approximate values of what homes are worth.
Sometimes the results are spot on, but they can also be terribly inaccurate. First, transaction
data has to be recorded with the county, which could take weeks. But, what alters the algorithm
most is that properties not currently on the market are included in the data. The algorithms
can’t possibly show whether or not a home has been updated, how well it’s maintained, or
esoteric values such as curb appeal and views.
For that reason, online valuations should be used only as one of many tools to estimate a
home’s value.

Ask ME, you real estate professional, for a comparative market analysis, or CMA. I can show you the most recent listings and sold comparables, accurate to within hours or a few days
at most.

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